Modern Mechanix magazine. October, 1934.<\/p>\n
Airships have often served as the symbol of a brighter tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Even before the first zeppelin was invented, airships featured prominently in utopian visions of the future. This 1898 poster advertised a musical comedy on the New York stage:<\/p>\n
Musical theater poster. 1898.<\/p>\n
And these German and Frenchpostcardspredicted air travel in theyear 2000:<\/p>\n
German postcard, circa 1900<\/p>\n
French postcard. 1910.<\/p>\n
Futurists of the early 20th Century often combined lighter-than-air and heavier-than-air technology, as in this urban skyscraper airport and solar-powered aerial landing field:<\/p>\n
Popular Science magazine. November, 1939<\/p>\n
Modern Mechanix magazine. October, 1934.<\/p>\n
This hybrid airship concept from 1943, designed to meet the needs of war, predicted the hybrid airships that would be built inthe 21st century.<\/p>\n
Popular Science magazine, February 1943<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Sometimes futurist airship visions were promoted by companies which were actually involved in the lighter-than-air business.<\/p>\n
For example, the Goodyear-Zeppelin company, which built the American airships Akron and Macon, and which had a financial interest in the promotion of the passenger dirigible, frequently offered alluring illustrations of future airship travel.<\/p>\n
Goodyear president Paul Litchfield and publicist Hugh Allen included the following pictures in their 1945 book, WHY? Why has America no Rigid Airships?:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
These drawingsfrom Hugh Allens The Story of the Airship(1931)imaginedan Art Deco dining salon, promenade, and even a lounge with a fireplace.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Airships could even advance medical technology, such as this airshiptuberculosis hospital.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Under the illusion that communism was the way of the future, Soviet propagandists loved images of modernity and enlisted the airship in their cause.<\/p>\n
Soviet poster, 1931. (We Are Building a Fleet of Airships in the Name of Lenin. Azeri text)<\/p>\n
Sometimes illustrators got so carried away depicting lavish interiors that they neglected to leave room for much lifting gas, as in this illustration from The American Magazine.<\/p>\n
The article described future airships to be built by the Goodyear-Zeppelin Company, which would be fitted up as sumptuously as a Palm Beach winter hotel:<\/p>\n
The American Magazine. May, 1930.<\/p>\n
This illustration of an atomic dirigible from a Soviet magazine in the 1960s left no room for lifting gas at all:<\/p>\n
Soviet Atomic Dirigible<\/p>\n
Modern Mechanics. July, 1931.<\/p>\n
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See the original post here:<\/p>\n
The Airship and Futurism: Utopian Visions of the Airship ...<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Modern Mechanix magazine. October, 1934. Airships have often served as the symbol of a brighter tomorrow Continue reading